Berio, Luciano (l

chä`nō bĕr`yō), 1925–2003, Italian composer, b. Oneglia. After studying at the Milan Conservatory and working as a coach and conductor in Italian opera houses, Berio was introduced in 1952 to serial music serial music, the body of compositions whose fundamental syntactical reference is a particular ordering (called series or row) of the twelve pitch classes—C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B—that constitute the equal-tempered scale.
..... Click the link for more information. by Luigi Dallapiccola Dallapiccola, Luigi (l
..... Click the link for more information. , and a nondoctrinaire serialism subsequently pervaded his music. In 1954, he began working in electronic music electronic music or electro-acoustic music, term for compositions that utilize the capacities of electronic media for creating and altering sounds.
..... Click the link for more information. at Milan Radio with Bruno Maderna Maderna, Bruno (br
..... Click the link for more information. , and founded the Studio di Fonologia Musicale, an important electronic music center. Despite the uncompromising modernism of his innovative and analytically avant-garde compositions, their richly sensuous sound colorings and dramatic power made them popular with concert audiences.

Among Berio's many works are Sequenzas I–XIII (1957–94), each a virtuoso piece for a different solo instrument and one (1966) for the soprano voice; Circles, settings of poems of E. E. Cummings Cummings, E. E. (Edward Estlin Cummings), 1894–1962, American poet, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1915. His poetry, noted for its eccentricities of typography, language, and punctuation, usually seeks to convey a joyful, living awareness of sex and love.
..... Click the link for more information. for mezzo-soprano, harp, and percussion; several pieces with texts taken from James Joyce Joyce, James, 1882–1941, Irish novelist. Perhaps the most influential and significant novelist of the 20th cent., Joyce was a master of the English language, exploiting all of its resources.
..... Click the link for more information. 's work; Visage (1961), for electronically manipulated voice; Sinfonia (1968), for orchestra and voices; Opera (1970, rev. 1977), for mixed media; La vera storia (1982), an opera with acrobats and a wordless soprano; Ofanim (1988), for voices, instruments, and electronics; and two operas, Outis (1996) and Cronaca del Luogo (1999). In the late 1980s Berio, who was also an influential teacher, founded the Centro Tempo Reale, a Florence new music center for research, production, and training.

Berio, Luciano

(born Oct. 24, 1925, Oneglia, Italy—died May 27, 2003, Rome) Italian composer. He was an important innovator in electronic music, the combining of live and taped music, aleatory music, graphic notation, musical “collage” using borrowed material, and (perhaps most significantly) in musical “performance pieces.” His wife, the singer Cathy Berberian (1925–83), was his principal collaborator. His best-known works include Omaggio a Joyce (1958), Visage (1961), Sinfonia (1968), Opera (1970), and his series of Sequenze (1958–2002).